


In Which Pepper Learns What Has Tony So Freaked Out

by nwhepcat



Series: A Series of Sometimes Contradictory Stories in Which Loki Messes with Tony Stark and IT'S NOT FUNNY, DAMMIT! [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 17:47:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper uncovers another layer to Tony Stark and a trauma he's been hiding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which Pepper Learns What Has Tony So Freaked Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Lost_City](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=The_Lost_City).



Pepper sheds her coat, bag and briefcase as she runs from the garage to Tony's workshop. Her hands shake so badly she can't work the keypad at all. 

"Jarvis!" she pleads, and the door opens with Jarvis' usual cool greeting, but she could swear there's an undertone of something more than concern in the A.I.'s voice.

Near his concepting workspace there's an overturned chair and a pair of jeans in a tangle on the floor. Not the "it's party time" heap of clothing she's seen plenty of in the past, but the "too much party OW" wad that may or may not have a bruised Tony lying next to it.

"Tony!"

"Mr. Stark is on the sofa," Jarvis says. 

Well, that narrows it down to five. It's not like Jarvis to be so unspecific.

Dum-E rolls toward her and hoots forlornly.

"Show me, sweetie." Pepper hates calling him Dum-E. She follows the bot across toward Tony's favorite sofa for collapsing into sleep (when he makes it away from his worktable, anyway). He stops well short of the sofa, giving a dubious whistle. 

Pepper can see why.

Scrunched into the corner of the sofa is a woman with a tangled mass of dark hair, her legs pulled up against her body with her arms wrapped around them. She wears only a loose pair of gray boxer briefs and black tee shirt, and the wide, wild look in her dark eyes that bleeds _Tony Stark in epic cluster-fuck._

"Tony," Pepper said, her voice barely more than a whisper of breath.

Dum-E edges slightly closer to Pepper.

Tony addresses the robot. "It's me, buddy." Lowering his -- her? -- legs, Tony flips up the hem of the Clash tee, something like the most forlorn Mardi Gras flash of all time. The arc reactor glows blue between bare breasts.

Despite his squeal of dismay, Dum-E rolls in closer.

"You said it, pal."

He looks up at Pepper then, but he's apparently not yet up to words for the non-robot population.

Pepper says, "You left a little something out of all those 'My dick is missing' texts."

"Did I?"

Leave it to Tony to reduce the entire female population to Those without Dicks. Given the panicked tone of the texts and the misery in his eyes, Pepper can't bring herself to give him shit for it now, but she does file it in a mental folder marked Shit Comma to Be Dealt Later.

Dropping onto the sofa beside him, Pepper reaches out to rub comforting circles over Tony's back, only to find him rocketing off his seat to scramble away from her. He tumbles to the floor at Dum-E's wheels, limbs drawn up against his strange new body except for one hand thrust out in a defensive gesture. Tony's eyes are wild, unfocused.

"Tony!"

It's Dum-E who answers her cry, with a shrill, warning whistle.

Still panting, Tony mutters, "It's okay, it's okay." 

"Tony, what can I do to help?"

He waves her back onto her seat. "Just...give me a minute." Tony sucks in a huge breath, then expels it noisily. "Wow. This is whole thing is all kinds of triggery." 

"Triggery? How?"

"People--gods--rummaging around in my body. Especially _removing_ things from it. Seriously uncool, and so it's a little much even being touched right now."

Dum-E gently prods Tony's leg with an inquisitive tweep. 

"No, buddy, I'm afraid you can't fix me this time."

"This time?" Pepper asked. "Why does this have the whiff of a story I should have been told some time ago?" She feels the slightest pang of guilt at pouncing on him when he's having a post-traumatic flare-up, but she also knows she has a 57% higher chance of pulling the story out of him now than at any other time.

"Yeah, you know this one. About Obie stealing the arc reactor." 

Pepper knows a _version_ of the story, she suspects. "I didn't remember Dum-E having something to do with it."

She sees the precise moment when Tony realizes he's blown that cover story, noting with surprise and relief that the _Cover your ass before Pepper--aaahh, too late!_ instinct takes the edge off his panic attack. She decides to nudge him a little farther in that direction. "That pooch is already screwed, Tony, so you might as well tell me."

Tony fixes his gaze on the floor somewhere between his knee and where Pepper sits, twisting a lock of his hair. She can see how his hands take to the fidgety gesture as if it's been a lifelong habit. "The arc reactor he   
took-- It wasn't the one you gave me."

She doesn't quite understand the meaning of this, but she knows it's bad. "Okay," she says quietly.

"You know Obie, he was all about the latest tech." He lets go of the tightly twisted hair, watching it unfurl itself. "In fact, he had some nice little number I knew nothing about. Temporary paralytic, completely immobilizes the subject, yet the mind is perfectly clear. I got a demo of that, very impressive." Tony's arms draw tight across his chest. 

The obvious scenario dawns on Pepper, to her growing horror. "Oh Jesus. Tony." Her eyes sting with tears she's not certain she'll be able to hold back. "He pulled it right out of your chest?"

"So now you know," Tony says in the fake casual voice Pepper's all too familiar with. "I'm the one who broke that nice presentation case you had made. Dum-E might've helped."

"Jesus," she says again.

"Yeah. I _really_ liked having Obie as my scapegoat on that one."

No wonder Tony's in such a state right now that he can't even stand to be touched. 

"Oh, Tony." She struggles to banish her tears--this is so not about her--but she feels them welling and threatening to spill.

"Hey," Tony says softly, already rising from the floor. "Hey, no." He settles on the couch pulling Pepper into his arms, where she leans into the unaccustomed softness of his female body. "It's all right, Pep. It's all right." 

She tightens her arms around him, stroking the long tangle of hair, gratified to feel some of the tension melting from Tony's muscles as she murmurs quiet reassurances that echo his own.

"Hey," he says after a long moment of this. "You are totally topping from the bottom here."

There's a slight hitch in her breath as she laughs, then they break the embrace. 

"Okay, so Loki did this."

"Well, I didn't see him," Tony clarifies, but Thor says he did escape from Asgard. Who else would--or could?"

"You haven't called the other Avengers, or at least Thor? Of course you haven't." Much more productive sending her panicky texts. Rising from the sofa, she gestures Tony back down. "You sit. Relax. I'm on it."

Retrieving Tony's cellphone, she scrolls the contacts list, hits call. Looking back toward this strange Tony/Not Tony, she offers her fiercest reassuring look. "This _will_ be all right."


End file.
